BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Jonathan Lemire, White House reporter for the AP and political analyst for MSNBC and NBC News

How/where are you celebrating your birthday and with whom? “It’ll be a low-key birthday at home with my wife and our two sons. But next year will be different: birthdays at this time of November sometimes fall on Thanksgiving and mine will do so in 2019 for a rather sadly significant milestone. I imagine I’ll get a birthday candle in a piece of turkey while pondering how I got so old.”

How did you get your start in journalism? “I worked at the school paper at Columbia University for years and that led to exactly one internship opportunity after graduating in May 2001: at the New York Daily News. For $200 a week, I ran around the biggest city in the world chasing shootings, fires and Mayor Giuliani’s new girlfriend. At the end of the summer, I was told that I would never be hired but I could stay on as an intern for another few months. A week later, September 11th happened. I worked around the clock for months and was eventually brought on staff.”

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What’s an interesting book/article you’re reading now or finished? And why? “I recently finished Steve Kornacki’s ‘The Red and the Blue.’ Steve’s a friend -- he also hails from Massachusetts and roots for all the right sports teams -- and his book is brilliant. It’s entertaining and lively and vividly illustrates how the political battles of the 1990s helped accelerate the culture of tribalism that dominates our deeply partisan politics today and helped give birth to the rise of Trump.”

What is a trend going on in the U.S. or abroad that doesn’t get enough attention? “The growing and dangerous impact of climate change can never get enough attention. And I’d also point to the use of phrase ‘fake news’ by authoritarian regimes around the world to undermine negative headlines and justify oppression.”

How is the Trump presidency going? “That’s what we spend each day trying to figure out. This we know: no president has so gripped the public’s – and media’s – attention. Never before has a political figure so dominated the discourse. It seems, at times, like it is impossible to have a conversation that’s not about Trump or pass a television not showing his image. He has changed how America is viewed around the world, for good or for bad, and how we view each other.”

What’s a fun fact that people in Washington might not know about you? “I have a long history with Donald Trump that began well before I covered his campaign and presidency. In 2001, while reporting at an event he held, he offered to set me up with another red-headed reporter. She was, I think, an intern at a local TV station and, mercifully, walked away before Trump could put his plan in motion. And later that year I saw him sneak snacks into a showing of the Tom Cruise movie ‘Vanilla Sky.’ He and his companion – I believe it was Melania – ducked in after the lights went down but I could see her pull out candy from her bag.”